Science Letters, Issue number 3, November 1999

Editorial

Youssef Iguider

Telecom Research Laboratory, Matsushita Group (Panasonic), Fukuoka, Japan.
E-mail: iguider@try-net.or.jp
 

       During last spring (1999), like many members of the Moroccan scientific and professional community based in Japan, I was very delighted to welcome Professor Mahdi Elmandjra among us. Professor Elmandjra (who was recently selected by the International Biographical Centre of Cambridge as one of the 2000 Outstanding Scientists of the 20th Century) came to Japan on an invitation from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and was based at Tokyo Keizai University as a Visiting Scholar. During the preceeding academic year he was Visiting Professor at Tokyo University.

       Since his arrival to Japan, Professor Elmandjra got actively involved in various scientific and research activities. Beside leading a team of scientists in a research project related to Cultural Diversity, he was lecturing at various distinguished Japanese universities and Institutes. And while accomplishing his scientific duties, Professor Elmandjra was very kind to get in touch with us (Moroccan scientific and professional community based in Japan). We enjoyed very much his constructive discussions (click here to see an interview with him).

       Last month, Professor Elmandjra went back to Morocco, after a 6 months stay in Japan (in a private communication, he mentioned that for him it was like "6 hours"). We also felt his stay too short. And I would like to use this opportunity to share with the readers of "Science Letters" (after consulting with Professor Elmandjra) the following speech which he gave at Japan Institute of Design few days before he left back to Morocco.

Cultural Diversity - Vital Design for the World

JAPAN INSTITUTE OF DESIGN
(Tokyo, 6 October 1999)
 

Mahdi Elmandjra

Professor, University Mohamed V, Rabat
Visiting Scholar, Tokyo Keizai University

I feel it a great honor to be the guest of the Japanese Institute of Design - three key words dear to me. I thank most sincerely the organizers for their kind invitation and seek, in advance, your indulgence not being a designer. I have come much more to learn than to profess. For many years architects have tolerated me in their meetings and international juries and the International Union of Architects even designated me as an honorary architect.

The relationship between architecture and design is a very delicate one. Just two words on this question, as a preliminary, before embarking on our subject of cultural diversity and design. The key point is that they are inter-dependant. One could conceive of design as a "micro-architecture" and architecture as a "macro-design". It is not a play on words. Words in themselves are a "design" and this is why I still go back to the dictionary before embarking upon any study of a topic.

Multi-dimensionality of design

The word "design", if used in a search request on "Alta Vista" for instance, you obtain the following answer (as of the 6 October 1999) "Alta Vista found about 52,426,276 web pages." If we Spend only one minute per web page, we would need 873.771 hours, 36.407 days or 99.75 years ! These figures are only to show how fast knowledge is accumulating and the incapacity for anyone to be able to encompass the great diversity of its content in whatever field you choose. Diversity has always been the basis of "unity" and will remain even more and more so in the future as complexity increases.

According to Richard Knight, the total knowledge of mankind now, doubles every 7 years. The quantitative analysis leads us to a little modesty and pleads against any monolithic or uni-linear approach to scientific assessments nor to cultural communication. Hence the importance of diversity as a method and as a design. When we move to semantics we discover this time a qualitative ocean of definitions, concepts and meanings which are even more intimidating.

I have tried to see whether the term "design" is translatable in another single word in any other language and have failed to obtain a positive answer with respect to about 10 languages. Everyone uses the English terminology and yet according to the Webster Dictionary the etymology is Medieval Latin, French and Middle English. The multi-dimensional nature of the word "design" stands out if we just enumerate what is associated with in the same Dictionary :

The modern meaning of "design" is intimately linked to the economic and socio-cultural consequences of the industrial revolution which facilitated the reproduction in a great quantities of prototypes conceived by designers with the help of fast evolving technologies for a growing number of consumers. The start of this industrialization process having taken place in the anglo-saxon world may explain why the English word imposed itself in almost every other language. A semantic consensus which has not affected the diversity of the substantive content of design nor in any way diminished its multi-dimensionality.

Design, science, technology and creativity

Design is an a creative, artistic, imaginative, aestethic undertaking but it is today unconceivable without the recourse to science and a heavier and heavier reliance on advanced technologies and the benefits of the fall outs of R & D (research and development). If we look at some of the countries whose achievements in design are uncontested "such as the USA, Japan, Italy, Finland "- we may discover that their lag time between the advances of scientific and technological research and their application in the industrial and cultural fields is smaller than that of other countries.

The increasing interdependence between design, science, technology and creativity can be a very positive factor for the preservation of diversity if the balance between these four elements is harmonious. It could also be a source of hegemony if the technological takes the lion's share ignoring the cultural context, the creative impulses and the social demand. This is the contemporary challenge for design at a moment when the classical debate between "tradition" and "modernity" has been worn out.
 

Cultural diversity & purpose

The threat to cultural diversity is a grave concern for all those who care about creativity and innovation as basic pillars for communication, human welfare and peace. Diversity is a constant concern of design "diversity in space and diversity in time. Diversity in space ensures participation whereas participation in time generates innovation. Designers can not work in a vacuum they have to listen to the public and read its desires (solidarity in space) they must also express their solidarity in time through anticipation and innovation. These two complementary processes are vital for cultural diversity.
 

We must see cultural diversity as a purpose. Among the dictionary definitions of "design" given above we came across "to have a purpose". In the early 1940's, a biologist, Von Bertalanfy wrote a book entitled "On Systems" in which he gave a simple definition of what is a "system". He said , "If there is a purpose there is a system". Purpose implies a sense of commitment "in the case of design maybe it is a commitment to a combination of aesthetics and usefulness as enzymes of cultural diversity.
 

Multi-sensorial design

"GK Graphics Inc. is firmly committed to its corporate mission to create fresh visual messages that are both sophisticated and sensuous, that are designed to offer colorful and tasteful style to daily living and that bring about aesthetic order and harmony to our consciousness. " (Kenji Ekuan)

The above sentence combines so many elements to design a process of which two stand out because they are not very often explicitly associated with design - "sensuousness" and "consciousness". Both of them call upon the use of all of our senses and both of them expand tremendously the spread of cultural diversity at the individual and collective level. How are the senses likely to evolve within the world of design.

Just as we now have the multimedia, are we not on the verge of moving to a multi-sensorial design involving the simultaneous participation of our five senses? As we are speaking of diversity, it is evident that if we could touch, smell, and hear what we see, and in some instances even taste it, that our perception and aesthetic appreciation would be greatly enriched because each sense reinforces the other. It will become more and more difficult to speak of man-made objects as inarticulate inanimate ones.

Experiences in this area are already taking place such as DAI NIPPON Printing Company's new technology which uses a "virtual feeling system" through the thumb with the assistance of a computer (see the Japan Times of 24-09-99). This is a beginning. Already computers have registered hundreds of smell which can emanate upon demand. I am sure that soon "virtual taste" will be with us. The only taste that no computer will ever be able to produce is "good taste" - so we are saved.

The important thing here is not just that of the relation between an object and us but the transformations it may call upon at the level of the designer who would have to integrate a greater number of parameters in his creative conceptualization. We would get closer to the the processes of our memory which integrate all the senses. When we memorize persons, places and events the recording of all the senses is their if we have recorded them.
 

Verticality and horizontality

Diversity helps to overcome the dangerous problems of "verticality" - a problem which preoccupies the Japan Institute of Design as we can see in its publication
"Voice of Design" " (vol 4-2, 13-06-98) where Kenji Ekuan highlights the dangers of specialization and emphasizes the need,

That is the big challenge, not only for design, today we have another verticality threatening us, threatening cultural diversity and cultural communication within and between countries. It is an aphorism named "globalization" which would verticalize the most precious treasure of civilizations - their value system. To use Kenji's vocabulary those value systems are the Japanese "lunch boxes" because they contain "the hearts and souls" of a richly kaleidoscopic world. A diversity which the designers of the logo of "Design for the World" have well rendered. Yes, indeed, cultural diversity is a vital design for the world. Designers, of all sorts and in all fields, have a responsibility in promoting the "horizontality" which conditions such a design.

Verticality and horizontality intersect at a point called "the quest of beauty". All the faiths and all of the creeds and beliefs praise "beauty". The Muslims say "God is beautiful and loves beauty". But thank God no one has yet imposed a norm as to what is "beautiful" nor registered it with ISO (International Standard Organization). The beauty of beauty resides in its non-standardization and non-globalization. The freedom to determine for oneself what is beautifut is a human right which deserves to be added to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There is no transfer of "aesthetics". I often quote this sentence of Braudel,
 

"One recognizes a civilization through what it refuses to borrow."

Refusing what to borrow, in this context, is a positive concept because it implies the freedom to choose and to refuse. Freedom is best defendor of cultural diversity because the latter it is its best protector. This is also the secret of originality and maybe explains, in part, the success of the Japanese school of design to which I express my earnest admiration as well my wishes for even greater achievements in the future.

Concluding remark

Having mentioned Kenji Ekuan, let me say in conclusion, what is the main reason for being with you today. I have come to pay tribute, through your reputed Institute, to the creators and designers wherever they may, and to all those who add beauty, pleasure and comfort to our daily life, and more specifically to the "designer" who has opened my eyes to the depth of his profession. I rendered him a homage in writing, four months ago, at the end of the Symposium "Design for the World" which he organized in Tokyo last June with a great success. I hope that he shall not mind that I read it here on his own terrain. It said,

My dear Ekuan,

The only thing in that tribute that I would change today concerns the statistics because it is no longer 7931 days that I have known him but 8051 days.

Thank you.

Mahdi Elmandjra
Tokyo, October 6, 1999
 

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